Senators use a congressional hearing to air personal grievances about social media

Sorry, but this is one of my favorite categories of political activity so I have decided to catalogue a few of the best examples we got today of politicians asking about tweets that personally upset them.

Senator Ron Johnson is mad about this joke tweet that accused him of strangling a dog. He says it is voter suppression:

Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee asked Sundar Pichai of Google if he had fired an employee who was mean to her online. Unfortunately for Blackburn he appears to still work there. Pichai, of course, could not speak to the employment status of that specific engineer in a company that employs more than 100,000 people.

Senators brought up a number of other specific posts and demanded to know why some stay up and others don’t.

As many experts pointed out, pushing the executives to respond to specific tweets in either direction can be seen as a violation of first amendment rights.

The hearing is officially over! Four Senators didn’t show up, apparently. Stay tuned for a bit of a summary.

Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada is asking about what executives are doing address radicalization on their platforms.

Zuckerberg said Facebook has gone from proactively identifying and removing 20% of hate speech to 94% of hate speech. He again says transparency reports will assist in these efforts.

Florida Senator Rick Scott tries to say Democrats are happy with content moderation policies after Democratic senators have spent the last three hours doing the opposite.

He brings up the story of a voter he spoke with whose Facebook was deleted without recourse. Zuckerberg says this is an example of a situation in which more transparency and the ability to appeal decisions would benefit users.

Senator Jon Tester of Montana said it is “baloney” for Republicans to attempt to regulate platforms differently based on the political affiliations of their executives and employees.

“Cut the political garbage,” he said.

Senator Ron Johnson wins second most scream-y line of questioning today, second only to Ted Cruz.

He demands Dorsey answer to his previous comment that Twitter has no influence over election results.

Johnson cites a joke tweet that says he strangled his neighbor’s dog, and said it could “definitely impact my ability to be reelected.”

“How is this not election interference” he asks.

Dorsey said he will need more information on the enforcement of that for context before he can properly respond.

Senator Tammy Duckworth is up now.

Like other Democrats, she chastises her Republican colleagues for using this “sham hearing” to bully tech companies into doing their bidding instead of addressing real misinformation concerns so close to the election.

“This committee is playing politics at a time when public officials should be doing everything possible to preserve confidence in our system of election and our system of government,” she said.

Duckworth is not really asking questions but using her time to call on the executives to commit to removing disinformation from foreign adversaries attempting to undermine democracy.

“You have a duty to do the right thing because facts still matter,” she said.

Senator Mike Lee of Utah said he feels there is an “enormous disparity” between what is “censored” on platforms, and that Republicans are “censored” far more often. He asks Dorsey to name an example of one liberal account that has had their content altered or removed due to misinformation.

To be clear he defines fact checking as censorship. Also, it is unlikely Zuckerberg would bring this up on the stand but it was recently revealed Facebook did in fact demote liberal content on the platform to appease Republicans.

A bunch of lawmakers today have mispronounced the last name of Pichai, but seem to be doing OK with the white CEOs’ names. Fairly bad!

Amid this Section 230 hearing, Trump is tweeting about the need to repeal Section 230.

He seems to fundamentally misunderstand how the measure works and that it would likely lead to his own accounts being removed.

That’s because Section 230 would hold platforms legally accountable for misinformation from user accounts. Instead of simply flagging Trump’s tweets or adding more context, Twitter would likely need to remove them completely and immediately.

Senator Tom Udall from New Mexico is questioning the executives now, focusing on foreign interference into US elections and the malicious spread information.

Zuckerberg said Facebook is cracking down on health information in particular amid the Covid pandemic.

He said Facebook is continuing to see some forms of voter manipulation and interference in the 2020 elections.

Senator Marsha Blackburn is asking Jack Dorsey why Trump has been “censored” 65 times and Biden has been censored zero times.

Dorsey says Trump has not been “censored”.

“To be clear, we have not censored the president,” he said. “We have not taken the tweets down that you are referencing, we added additional context as we do with any world leader.”

Markey asks Zuckerberg about the concern of extremist content being perpetuated in Facebook groups.

He asks Zuckerberg to commit to pausing all group recommendations n the platforms until after the elections. Zuckerberg declines to commit to that particular move but reiterates Facebook is moving away from algorithmic recommendations of groups.

Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts is the latest Democrat to complain that this hearing is politicized, accusing his Republican colleagues of using the congressional hearing to do Trump’s bidding.

“Republicans can and should join us in addressing the real problems posed by big tech, instead of feeding a false narrative of anti conservative bias to intimidate big tech,” he said.

We are back! Senator Jerry Moran asks how much money is spent on content moderation.

Zuckerberg says $3bn, Sundar says no specifics but that it’s likely more than $1bn, Dorsey does not answer.

Moran notes that smaller companies may not be able to afford such resources.

It could be noted that the $1bn Google spends on content moderation is a small portion of its $160bn per year revenue. Facebook’s $3bn devoted to content moderation is a larger portion of its $72bn yearly revenue.

We are currently in a five minute recess. To summarize the morning’s events:

• Most senators, particularly Republicans, have berated the tech executives for censoring tweets they agree with, particularly those from Trump that include misinformation. The topic of the New York Post article about Hunter Biden being restricted was brought up frequently, particularly by Ted Cruz who was enraged about it.

• Section 230 has been brought up exactly three times during this hearing that is ostensibly about section 230: by Senator Brian Schatz who talked about the measure extensively but did not ask questions of any of the executives, calling the hearing a “sham”, Deb Fischer of Nebraska who asked Zuckerberg what changes should be made to it, and Senator Richard Blumenthal who mentioned he had been advocating for Section 230 reform for 15 years but believed this hearing was just an excuse for his Republican colleagues to bully tech executives.

The Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell is speaking now. She is again bringing up the issue of free press, drawing on data collected in her report released yesterday, which investigated the scale to which big tech has decimated local news.

She asks Pichai about media losing as much as 30-50% of ad revenue to Google and how that is affecting their platforms. Pichai touts Google’s efforts to help local news and says Google has committed $2bn in licensing over the next three years to news organizations. Google’s yearly revenue is $160bn.

“The message from today’s hearing should be that the free press needs to live and be supported by all of us,” Cantwell said. “We look forward to discussing how we can make sure that they get fair return on their value.”

Nearly two hours into this hearing on Section 230 and Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska asks the first question that is actually about Section 230.

“What if any changes you think should be made to Section 230 to address the specific concerns regarding content moderation you’ve heard this morning?” she said.

Zuckerberg answers that he believes in inncreasing transparency on the content moderation process. He cited Facebook’s quarterly transparency report and said everyone in the industry should be doing it. It seems Fischer ran out of time before the other two executives could answer.

Brian Schatz of Hawaii uses his time to not ask questions of the tech executives but to call out his Republican colleagues for spending the morning bullying tech executives for not doing their bidding.

“This hearing is an embarrassment, we have to call it what it is: a sham,” he said. “This is nonsense, and it’s not going to work this time”.

Nearly two hours into this hearing and we have not really discussed section 230.

Cruz’s questioning was loud and angry and mostly useless. Except for when he got Dorsey to say Twitter does not affect elections, which seems a ridiculous thing to say.

Senator Ted Cruz is now here with lots of shouting! He has some very angry questions for Jack Dorsey over the censorship of the New York Post article about Hunter Biden.

He asks Dorsey if he believes Twitter influences elections. Dorsey very plainly answers “no,” which enrages Cruz.

“Who the hell elected you, and who put you in charge of what the American people are allowed to hear?”

Now Senator Richard Blumenthal is up. He says he has been advocating for the reform of Section 230 for “literally 15 years” but that this hearing has thus far been used for his Republican colleagues to bully tech executives for labeling disinformation from the president.

He criticizes Trump’s tweets and even has a few printed out to show the viewers, including one in which the president says we will “learn to live” with Covid, and another in which he says children are “immune” from the disease.

“Frankly, I am appalled that my Republican colleagues are holding this hearing literally days before an election to browbeat tech platforms for labeling misinformation from our president as what it is,” he said.

John Thune, Republican Senator of South Dakota is up now. He is taking issue with a metaphor apparently used by Democrats that lawmakers are “working the ref” when complaining about the censorship of conservative content, asking each executive if they are a referee.

All three say no. Zuckerberg repeats his old “we do not want to be the arbiters of truth” line.

Uh, what does this have to do with Section 230 again?

Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is now speaking. She said she believes Republicans are politicizing voter suppression ahead of the election - “an issue that should not be a partisan topic”.

Klobuchar said Facebook has made $2bn on political ads since 2018. She asks if these ads are reviewed by humans, Zuckerberg says no. She accuses Facebook of stoking divisiveness, citing studies that say the algorithms push people towards more polarized contentent.

“One of you researchers warned senior executives that our algorithms exploit the human brains attraction to divisiveness,” she said. “The way I look at it more divisiveness more time on the platform or time on the platform, the company makes more money. Does that bother you?”

Zuckerberg says he disagrees with that characterization.

The questioning so far has focused on forcing tech executives to answer to criticisms on the removal of specific content.

It is maybe worth noting that these executives do not personally moderate content.

Cory Gardner, Republican Senator of Colorado is coming out of the gates with a plain question for Dorsey: “Do you believe the Holocaust happened?”

Dorsey, of course, answers yes. Gardner would like to know why Twitter has not, then, removed Holocaust denial tweets from world leaders.

The Twitter CEO said misinformation on Twitter is not banned outright. Only three categories of misinformation are not allowed on the platform:

1) manipulated media

2) public health misinformation, specifically surrounding Covid

3) election interference and voter suppression.

So Holocaust denial, he said, is misleading information but “we don’t have a policy against that type of misleading information”.

Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan is videoing in now, he asks Zuckerberg if he believes Facebook has “a responsibility to offer app users who are on the path to radicalization by violent extremist groups.”

The question is particularly relevant for Peters, whose home state governor was the target of a thwarted kidnapping plot organized on Facebook.

Zuckerberg highlights that white supremacist organizations on Facebook are treated as terrorist organizations and enforced as such.

He said Facebook has created more partnerships with law enforcement to flag cases like that with the governor of Michigan earlier.

Wicker is rambling about which of Trump’s tweets have been labeled as misinformation and demanding to know why.

Dorsey noted that the company has special policies for global leaders, attempting to leave up content that is relevant to voters while labeling falsehoods.

“We want to make sure that we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need,” he said.But if there’s a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it.”

Already the hearing has become highly politicized, Republicans focusing on supposed censorship of conservative speech and leaders.

Now the tech CEOs are answering to questioning.

To start, Wicker is getting into specific details, asking Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey why a tweet from Trump casting doubt on mail-in ballots were labeled as potential misinformation while others were not. Specifically he wants to know why a Chinese Communist Party tweet “falsely accusing US military” of causing the coronavirus epidemic was left up for two months.

Dorsey is standing by the decision to flag Trump’s tweet.

“There are certainly things that we can do much faster,” he said. “But generally, we believe that the policy was enforced in a timely manner, and in the right regard.”

Zuckerberg talks about the struggle to set the “limits of online speech.”

“People can reasonably disagree about where to draw the lines,” he said. “We need a more accountable process that people feel is legitimate.”

Zuckerberg said he supports Congress to update Section 230 to “make sure it is working as intended”.

To do so he suggests the following:

• Make content moderation more transparent
• Separate bad actors from good actors by “making sure that companies can’t hide behind section 230, to avoid responsibility for intentionally facilitating the illegal activity on their platform”.

He goes on to talk about all the good things Facebook has done regarding content moderation and preparing for the elections.

OK Zuck is back. Understandably a lot of people think it is ridiculous that he couldn’t figure out how to get online for the hearing he was subpoenaed to appear.

Mark Zuckerberg is apparently MIA! The Facebook executive is reportedly having trouble connecting with the hearing.

The irony is probably not lost on anyone that the tech hearing is delayed because the tech executive can’t get his tech to work.

“This is a most unusual development,” Wicker said, before calling a 5 minute recess for Zuck to get his video chat figured out.

Now we have Sundar Pichai of Google, touting the company’s mission to improve access to information. He said Google is aware of the benefits and risks this brings.

“The internet has been one of the world’s most important equalizers,” he said. “Information can be shared and knowledge can flow from anyone, anywhere. The same low barriers to entry also make it possible for bad actors to cause harm.”

He touches on the Google’s efforts to support local journalism and defends the company’s practices.

“We approach our work without political bias. Full stop,” he said.

Dorsey leads with Twitter’s suggestions to improve section 230.

1) Requiring social media companies make the moderation process and the tools used to enforce policies be made public.

2) Requiring they make a straightforward appeal process available for users to call on companies to fix mistakes.

3) More transparency into algorithms

We are headed now to the opening statements. Each tech executive has five minutes to talk about their platform and Section 230. Jack Dorsey of Twitter is up first.

Now we have Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell giving her opening statements.

Cantwell spearheaded a report released on Tuesday outlining the ways social media firms have eroded local news coverage and led to the defunding of small publications over the years.

She said platforms haven’t done enough to prevent election interference, and criticized them for allowing users (presumably a reference to Trump) use their services to cast doubt on the election process and vote by mail system.

“We have to show that the United States of America stands behind our principles and that our principles do also transfer to the responsibility of communication online,” she said.

Wicker does not take long to get into the New York Post story that Twitter controversially reduced the reach of due to concerns over its content.

He said Twitter’s policy against “hacked materials” is overly broad and unfairly enforced. The company said it did not allow the Biden story to circulate because it contained hacked materials, but didn’t do the same when Donald Trump’s tax returns were leaked.

Some have criticized Wicker’s record on privacy in light of his demands today.

Good morning, we are off! Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker is opening the hearing with a pointed speech about ending the “free pass” tech companies get due to Section 230.

Hello and welcome to today’s Senate hearings, which will interrogate how the internet in the US is fundamentally regulated - fun!

I am one of the Guardian’s West Coast technology reporters and I will be providing you with live updates throughout the day.

You can catch up on everything you need to know about section 230 and today’s hearing with our preview story from yesterday.

In summary, the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google will be answering to Congress about protections they are granted under Section 230, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.

Republicans (inaccurately) think this law is being used to censor conservative speech. Thus there will likely be a lot of focus on how these platforms moderate content. Other lawmakers have raised questions about Big Tech ahead of the hearings, including its effects on local news.

Stay tuned for updates.